This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort. It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest Nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it.

How is the War on Poverty going today? After half a century of fighting poverty, what have we learned?

Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center says,

By most accounts, we did lose [the War on Poverty] (certainly by no reasonable standard did we win it)… There was no obvious ceiling to what progressives thought was achievable. At the time the idea that public-spirited men and women, at the head of the federal government, could transform American society sounded ambitious. Today it sounds fanciful and in some circumstances downright destructive (for more, see the Affordable Care Act).